


Alone Always

by static_abyss



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Character of Color, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-16 13:12:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4626519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/static_abyss/pseuds/static_abyss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Scott felt alone, and the one time he didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alone Always

**Author's Note:**

> I was considering writing meta, but then it became fic, so that's this.

**1.**

The glass table shatters when the blue vase with the yellow flowers hits it, hundreds of shining pieces scattering on the floor of the living room. Scott stands by the kitchen door, at the foot of the staircases, watching his mother and father stare each other down from opposite sides of the broken table. 

"Leave," Melissa says, her voice so even Scott wouldn't know she was mad if he wasn't looking at her.

"I'm not leaving," Rafael yells.

He's holding the red and yellow roses from the vase, his hands shaking as he sways on the spot. 

"I'm not leaving, do you understand?" Rafael says. "I'm not. He's my son, too."

"Get out," Melissa says, so calm she could be at the hospital.

His dad doesn't move, but the look on Melissa's face says enough. Scott runs into the living room, nine years old, and afraid because his father is leaving. He hears Melissa say his name, hears even the warning tone. But Scott is afraid and he wants his dad.

"Don't go," he says, reaching up for his father's hand.

Rafael blinks down at him. "Scott," he says, as though surprised to see him. 

"Scott," Melissa says. "Come here."

"Why are you leaving?" Scott asks.

Rafael kneels down, the roses still in his hands. He smells like stale beer, the front of his shirt wet. He puts a hand on Scott's shoulder, and brushes the hair away from Scott's forehead.

"I love you, Scott," he says, leaning over to hug Scott.

"Let him go."

The fear in Melissa's voice sets off something in Scott. His heart starts beating harder in his chest, his father's arms more constricting now. Scott tries to move away to comfort his mother, but Rafael holds him tighter.

"Your mom thinks you don't need me anymore," Rafael says, his words slurring together. "But that's not true is it, Scott?" 

They turn together, Scott still by his father, but with his back to the glass table. He can't see his mother's face anymore.

"I want you out of my house," Melissa says. "And I want you away from _my_ son."

Scott is nine years old. Rafael is drunk and his mother is kicking him out of the house at two in the morning. Everyone keeps saying Scott's name, but it feels like no one is actually looking at him. No one is asking him what he thinks. No one is explaining why his dad is leaving.

Scott's distracted and Rafael is drunk. When Rafael stands, mid yell about how Scott is his son too, he pushes too hard against Scott. Scott is nine, shorter than most of the boys in his class, so he isn't ready for the shove. He topples over, right into the shattered glass table at his mother's feet.

The slice along his arm stings and Scott inhales in surprise at the pain. It burns right after, heat crawling up the back of his arm even as he bleeds. 

Melissa notices first.

"Look at what you did," she says, and for a wild second, Scott thinks she's talking to him.   
She's looking at his dad though, even as she pulls Scott up to check his arm. She uses her shirt to cover up the wound, pressing hard even as she grabs at her cellphone. Scott hears her call an ambulance, from far away.

Rafael is looking at Scott, his brown eyes wide. He seems more sober than Scott has seen him be, in the months since he lost his job. 

"Don't cry," Rafael says.

Melissa says something, and Scott reaches up to wipe at his face. His hands shake when he does, and his arm aches. He wants his dad to hug him, wants his mom to ask if he's okay. But all he gets is his father walking out the door, and his mother's quiet sobs by his ear.  
  
  
  
 **2.**

Lydia tastes like artificial cherries, plastic, and mint gun. She smells like flowery perfume, and rose petal lotion, a combination of scents that make Scott's heart race, and his hands tighten around her. She's small, her waist fitting just right under his hands, her arms strong and possessive around his neck. She could ask for whatever she wanted and Scott would let her have it.

He can see why Stiles likes her.

She's breathing hard as she kisses him, eager little noises lost in the sounds Scott is making. He kisses her back just as hard, a part of him carried away by the feel of her. Another part does it because he's angry.

He's angry that he can't control himself, when he's prided himself in doing that ever since his father left. He knows how hard his mom has to work to make ends meet, knows from experience that it kills her when he asks for things and she can't buy them for him.

He stopped asking, learned to look away, never linger by the gaming section. Even now that he's a sophomore in high school, and things are a little better, he doesn't ask. He's an expert at controlling his wants, at thanking the world for giving him everything he's ever needed. 

But he wants too much, ever since the werewolf bit him, and he's not so good at controlling himself anymore. He wants Allison, wants Lydia, and Stiles, and sometimes Jackson too. It's like everything inside him went out of control, the hunger in him stronger the closer it gets to the full moon. He doesn't know what to do, doesn't know who to ask.

He doesn't know if he can trust Derek. He doesn't trust the alpha that bit him. Stiles knows less than Scott does, and it's too much.

So he kisses Lydia, because she's warm and she smells like artificial flowers. He wants it to do something to him, wants to feel what Stiles feels every time Lydia walks by. He wants his world to narrow down to her, to quiet the outside noises, and to forget for a second that he's not in control, that people are getting hurt because of him.

He kisses her harder, and when they pull away, nothing has changed. Except now, Scott has hurt Stiles.  
  
  
  
 **3.**

"I don't know what to do," Scott says.

He sits on the loft steps, in a red hoodie too big for him, and jeans he should have stopped wearing last year. He toys with the rip right below the knee on his jeans, and waits for Derek to say something.

They stare out at the wide open space of the loft, at the table at the far end, right in front of the windows. Boyd's old bed is upstairs with what's left of Isaac's things. Cora went to get dinner just as Scott came in, so she'll be a while.

"It gets easier," Derek says, finally.

He leans a little closer to Scott, let's their shoulders brush together, just enough so that Scott knows he isn't alone in this. 

"It feels like my fault," Scott whispers. 

He rests his feet a step higher, and tucks his face into his knees. It's selfish of him, Scott knows, to bring this to Derek. Scott wasn't the one who carried Erica's body out of the vault. Scott wasn't the one forced to kill Boyd. Scott didn't love Jennifer Blake. 

But on quiet nights, when Stiles is too busy at home to call Scott, when Isaac falls asleep too early, and it's just Scott awake in his room, it gets harder for Scott to believe that everything isn't partially his fault. Because he was the one who knew Erica, who heard her quiet Spanish to her mom on the phone every lunch time. Scott should have stopped her, should have stopped Derek from building a pack of teenagers. He should have talked to Boyd and Isaac, should have kept Peter away from Lydia. 

"It's hard now," Scott says. 

"Because you're a true alpha?"

Scott looks up at the amused tone in Derek's voice, but there's nothing even remotely joking on Derek's face. 

"It's going to get harder," Derek says. "When people expect things from you, and you're only a kid. But it gets easier, too. Especially if there's someone to help."

Scott feels guilty, the way he always will whenever Derek brings up Laura. Derek forgave him and Stiles, but it must be hard for Derek, knowing that because of Scott, he had to bury Laura twice. 

"I'm glad you're here," Scott says, meaning it with every part of himself.

He breathes easier just knowing that he doesn't have to carry all of his guilt alone, that Derek carries it too. They'll balance each other, neither letting the other fall too deep into their own head. Stiles is Scott's best friend, but he doesn't always understand the shared experiences that keep Scott and Derek close. 

"We're losing them too fast," Scott says. "First, Laura, then Peter, and Kate, Allison, Erica, Boyd. It's too fast. Everything is changing too fast."

Derek opens his mouth to say something, and stops, the silence between them too long. Scott stretches out his legs, sits up, and breathes past the pounding of his heart.

"What?" he asks.

Derek shrugs and runs a hand over Scott's head. He lets his hand fall on Scott's shoulder and squeezes, but he's not looking at Scott when he speaks.

"I have to go," Derek says. "For Cora. For me."

_I need you_ , Scott thinks with all his might, thinks it so hard, Derek should be able to hear it.

"I'll come back," Derek says.

"Okay," Scott says.

He tries not to think of his father.  
  
  
  
 **4.**

It's not Stiles, Scott tells himself.

The fingers on his face, the hands that push the sword through his stomach belong to Stiles, but this isn't him. Scott has never heard Stiles talk the way he's doing now, low so that Scott has to lean in to hear, taunting him.

"I like pain," the nogitsune says, with a twist of his wrist.

The sword sinks deeper and Stiles, though Scott tells himself that it isn't Stiles, steps closer. Their faces are inches apart, Scott's hands on top of Stiles's trying to push the sword away. 

"Give it to me, Scott," the nogitsune says, with Stiles's voice. "Give me their pain."

It's hands are warm wherever they touch Scott, the feel of the fingers on his face familiar, but unwelcome. Scott tries to think of the face in front of him as the enemy, and can't. Even if it weren't Stiles, Scott could never hurt another person. 

Scott scans the room, even as the nogitsune presses closer. Kira lays on the ground in a crumpled heap, her hair covering the bruise from Stiles's fist. There's a scalpel within arms reach, but the idea of hurting Stiles in any way makes Scott naseous. 

Scott tries to breathe against the burning pain in his stomach and the blood bubbling up his throat. The liquid in his mouth is thick and hot, a combination of blood and spit. Scott wants to call out for help, to scream until someone hears him. He doesn't want to have to make a choice between him and Stiles's life.

There is no choice there.

"Stiles, can you hear me?" Scott asks, each word punctuated by a hiss of pain. 

It hurts to speak, every movement a strain on Scott's tense muscles. He's bleeding out, strength leaving him the longer Stiles's fingers are on his face. 

"He can't hear you," the nogitsune whispers, breath hot against Scott's ear. "It's just me and you, now."  
  
  
  
 **5.**

Kira stands in the rain, her brown eyes sad, her face turned up to look at Scott. They're two steps away from each other, but the distance weights heavily on Scott's shoulders. He shouldn't feel it so strongly, not with everything that's already weighing him down.

"I need to figure things out," Kira says.

In that moment, as the street light hits her hair, she's Allison, and Erica, Boyd, Isaac, Derek. 

_Stay_ , he should say. 

They're all slipping away from him. Stiles is hiding something that's eating away at him, and he won't say what it is. Malia never signed up to fight this battle. She deserves so much more after everything she's lived. Lydia deserves a break, after Peter, after Allison, after Jackson and Aiden. Liam didn't ask for Scott as his alpha. None of them asked to watch how the kids in their school died, one by one.

And still, all Scott can think is how unfair it is that he loses them, but they will never lose him.

_Don't go_ , he wants to scream. _I'll do better_.

"We can fix it," he says.

Kira smiles, sadly. When she touches his face, the warmth is too familiar. Scott can feel the heat from his cheek to his hands, to the center of his chest where it catches and turns into a knot. He breathes past it, the choking sensation familiar after so long.

"Whatever this is, Scott," Kira says. "I don't I can fix it here."

She kisses him, and something shatters within Scott's chest. He watches Kira walk away, watches her car get smaller in the distance. He grasps at anything he can to keep himself together. He has Malia and Stiles, Lydia, Liam, and Hayden. There's Mason, who deserves better than any of them can give him, because Mason would never abandon Liam. 

Their world is made to break people like Mason. Positivity doesn't last long. It didn't for Scott, not until he tied himself to keeping everyone else safe. As long as everyone else was all right and happy, then Scott kept going. 

But they're not okay. They haven't been. Not in a very long time.

The places where Kira touched him are cold.  
  
  
  
 **1.**

Theo Raeken has blond hair and kind hazel eyes. He wants to be a part of Scott's pack, wants to willingly join the mess Scott has made. Theo owes Scott nothing, isn't even a friend so he has no reason to be nice, no reason to spare Scott's feeling.

So when Theo says, "You're doing so much more than you should be doing. You're only human," Scott believes him. 

Because Theo doesn't care about Scott the way Stiles does, Theo has no reason to lie.

"You're just a kid," Theo says. "Kids shouldn't have to do the things you've done, Scott."

Theo sits across Scott's kitchen table, his expression determined, his words comforting. Scott feels loose, as though all the pieces of himself have finally come apart. He _is_ a boy. He _has_ done more than enough. 

Hearing the words aloud means more to him than he can ever tell Theo Raeken. Just knowing that someone else sees him as _just Scott_ , not as The True Alpha, fills Scott with the strength he'd thought he'd lost when Kira left. Someone knows . Someone _sees_ that's it's too much, that Scott can barely stand sometimes because of the weight of it all. 

"I just want you to know that I'm with you," Theo says. "In good and bad."

"There will probably be more bad than good," Scott says, and he means it.

Theo looks at him with kind hazel eyes. "I'm counting on it," he says. "You're not alone."

Scott believes him.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Richard Siken's poem "Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out."


End file.
